mourned childhood
by edeabeth
Summary: Lilac Potter and Severus Snape were never meant to be anything. (She's at her breaking point and she's never looked stronger.) A/U (abuse)


_I'm definitely doing a sequel to this, more full length and from Rose's point of view._

 _._

 _beginning_

 _._

Lilac Potter looks defensive and angry, standing with her arms crossed and feet clad in battered combat boots. Snape doesn't understand why she can't be like any other girl, wearing those sensible shoes or colourful ballet flats. She stands with her dark black hair shielding her face, waiting in a line as students slowly trudge up to the hat.

His heart stops when she glances up at the table with bright green eyes and he thanks Merlin that she inherited her father's messy dark hair because he knows he'd never be able to handle a mirror image of Lilly.

He's lost in thought when she strides up to the old stool and sets the hat delicately on her head. It took exactly three seconds before it _roared_ Ravenclaw. The school is silent as she takes her seat away from the others, shoulders hunched and hands in fists.

Snape doesn't understand a lot about girls, but he does understand bruised wrists and timid stares.

It's after the feast and the first couple days he learns about Lilac Potter. She's quiet and doesn't like people, which is so much like Lilly it hurts. He remembers the days spent with Lilly in the library or out by the lake, watching people from a distance. Sometimes her hands would shake when she was in a group of people, a nearly unnoticeable quirk.

The first day of potions reveals that she shares that little trait. The classroom is dark and filled with tables and she sits close to the front with three other Gryffindors. He doesn't bother to say a word to her, instead rattling through a well-worn little speech that makes several faces pale and one girl's –Granger, he thinks with dislike- eyes to narrow at him.

He's surprised at the end of the class when Lilac hands him a bottled potion that is the perfect shade of green.

.

 _secrets_

.

He finds her a couple days after school begins because he is seemingly always finding her. Lilac is wearing some muggle clothing that looks ridiculously worn. Her combat books look even more battered and her sweater looks like at one point it was black and has melted away into a pale grey colour. He's surprised to see her in the abandoned classroom drawing away at a piece of paper, looking smaller than Snape ever remembered her being.

"Miss Potter?" He calls out in a quiet voice, looking the way the light hits her. She looks pale and tired with her green eyes looking up at him. "Whatever are you doing in here?"

She shrugs her boney shoulders. "Didn't think anybody would mind, professor."

They stare at each other in a brief silence before he asks something he's been dying to know ever since Lilac returned for second year, "Have you been eating properly?"

He had the privilege last year dealing with ten older girls who deemed their bodies wrong and decided to fix it with starvation. Snape doesn't want to see Lilly's child grow any tinier. He doesn't think he could handle watching her kill herself like that, a mirror a torment and a plate of food a torture.

"I eat well enough, I suppose. Though, if it concerns you, I'll try to eat a bit more." She gives him a thin smile.

"I do not have time dealing with fainting spells, Miss Potter."

Lilac cocked her head. "No one does, really. Waste of time."

He blinked. He'd never spoken to her in such ways before. Other than barely there compliments and scribbled comments on essays. "May I see what you are drawing?" If it were any other student he'd say something harsh, commenting on the waste of paper and time. Except, when she flips the paper around to reveal what looks like an abstract concept of a zoo. It takes him a few moments to realize that the twisted forms within the cages are reflections of the dark haired girl.

Some are crouched and others look frantic, motion frozen in ink.

"What do you think?" Lilac asked him softly.

"I think you see more than most ever dream of."

He turned and walked away.

(the next essay she hands in has a small little sketch of a bat in the top right hand corner. His lips twitch.)

.

 _(third year)_

.

She's livid.

She storms around the castle, verbally dominates Granger in all of her classes. Her knuckles are bruised and sore from punching unforgiving stone walls but he doesn't blame her.

Goyle, a fool in her year group, catches her wandering the halls alone. He grabs her by the arm and squeezes tight and her face never shows a single moment of pain nor fear. "You little bitch," he leers darkly and forces her against a wall.

Lilac shuts down, eyes shut and face pale as he easily snaps the fingers of her left hand. He doesn't get a chance to do much more because that is when Snape stuns him far harsher than probably necessary.

"Are you alright, Miss Potter?"

She looks lost and terrified as she walks away, walking as if she's trapped in a dream-or maybe a nightmare, he realized later.

For the rest of the year she's like a shadow, always fading away and disappearing from the world. Her fingers heal crooked and somewhere down the line her little sketches on potion essays stop.

There's a conflict at the end of the year when Sirius Black finally shows his ugly face, stunning Peter Pettigrew and freeing himself from the law. Snape hates that he isn't there for her when he hears about the girl in the hospital wing, leg broken from the tree that is far too violent for a damn school. Black's taken up the chair by her bed, rambling off some story from school days that makes him cringe when he wanders in with a potion clasped tightly in his grip.

"Are you alright, Miss Potter?" He asks simply as he sets it down on the bed table. It glows faint pink.

"What do you care?" Black demands roughly, face narrow and pale. Prison has wasted him, he thinks almost smugly. However, there is something so fragile in his words, like he's teetering on the edge of madness. "What's that supposed to be?"

He smirks coldly. "A potion."

Lilac almost smiles, adjusting the thick covers. Her arms are covered in what looks to be burn scars, shining almost against her skin. One is made up of wavy lines that bring him back to fond memories, sitting with Lilly in Rose Potter's kitchen while she cooked lovely things in the oven. The elements of the stove though, round little spirals. He wants to say something but her almost there smile is too fragile to crush so he nods his head.

"I hope you feel better, Miss Potter. It'd be a shame if I lost my best student due to an ill behaving tree."

"I'm your best student?" She teased, words clipped with something that takes him a moment to understand is respect. "I thought that was Granger."

Snape shuddered. "I'd rather get mauled by a dog."

She grins and his heart feels ten times lighter.

.

 _goblet of poison_

.

Fourth year is a mess. Media swarms the girl-who-lived. Her bright green eyes, reclusive personality. Everyone wants to talk to her.

She's brittle, when she returns to Hogwarts from her muggle relatives. According to two Slytherin girls they found her having a complete panic attack in the bathroom after a rather nasty article written about her. Sometimes he catches sight of new scars and new bruises that don't seem to fade away and every now and then she'll pushed her hair back from her face with crooked fingers and give a scowl to anyone who looks twice.

Lilac Potter is a living weapon, some whisper. She's an enchantress, mastering the spells that only Merlin ever knew. Snape knows better.

She's been up and down the library since day one, memorizing every little detail she could possibly get her hands on. The essays she hands in are almost triple in length, brutally bringing fourth every fact she could find. Her potions are brilliant and her charms are masterful.

So when the dance rolls around she shows up alone in a black dress with a veil over her face.

Some people ask her whatever is she wearing because no matter how fashionable the lacy gown is, it looks odd amongst the brights and pastels that flitter about the ballroom.

"I'm mourning," she informed them gently. "I'm mourning a lot of things."

She's at her breaking point and she's never looked stronger.

He'd like to imagine they could have danced together.

.

 _order of chaos_

.

 _Help me_

He gets an owl from her near the end of the holidays. He's surprised to have found her sensibly dark owl sitting perched on his window ledge, a tiny scrap of paper with desperate words waiting for him. Lilac usually writes with a careful print but these letters are terribly slanted and he's terrified at the rusted brown colour that stains the corner of the paper.

She's supposed to be staying with her Godfather this summer due to his interference in her returning to the damned muggles-cupboard under the stairs, bars on the windows and angry hands, belts that break delicate skin and green eyes that have seen far to much.

She's cowered in the basement of Black's ink stain of a house. Her godfather is gone and she's sitting hunched in the shadows with her arms crossed tightly and battered combat boots laced up tight. "You needed help?" He asks her carefully.

Lilac tilts her head up and he stares at the rainbow of bruises that destroy the paleness of her face. There is a nasty scratch that goes across her cheek that he knows will scar and she's holding her arm to her chest defensively. "I suppose I did," she mumbled. "He went for more beer. I was hiding."

"Sirius Black did this to you?" Snape demanded loudly. "I'll gut him."

"Please don't," her voice wavered. "I don't think he's worth it."

"God help you," he said to her softly. "I'm taking you from here. Do you have your belongings?"

She frowned. "He burned them all. Said I couldn't leave. Thinks I'm like my dad, sometimes my mum. I don't know who I am."

"You're the girl who wears ridiculous footwear." Snape informed her as he picked her up carefully. Green eyes regard him with exhaustion.

"I hate them. Soldiers wear boots like these. Sometimes," she flinched at movement. "I used to play with my cousin's toy soldiers."

"You can wear whatever you want for shoes. Just nothing ridiculous."

"What do you define as ridiculous?" She asked him. She weighs nothing in his arms, skin and bones practically. The scar on her forehead has never looked so violent.

"Lavender Brown's heels."

Lilac Potter stays in the cottage on his property. Dumbledore searches intently for her while Snape beats Black into submission. He'd love to snap his goddamn neck, but he remembers the fear in Lilac's eyes.

He doesn't. He wants to.

God help the girl, he thinks late at night when he sees the light in her window despite the curtains.

.

 _bleeding princess_

.

She's a mess after Umbridge's torture and Black's death.

She howls and screams, taking scissors to her painfully long hair and hacking it away into a short bob that looks perfect-crooked and dark. Filled with edges.

The summer after Black's death she stays in his little cottage. He visits her one evening and finds that she's been living out of boxes.

"This was meant to be your home, you know." He says sharply. "I don't want you skirting around this place. I do not have the time or patience for it."

Her hands tremble.

"I'm sorry to be a bother," she replies sharply with her chin tilted up but she flinches, expecting him to hit her and to hurt her and to rape her against the goddamn wall the way her Uncle had, the summer before fourth year.

Snape takes a quick look at the first book, Muggle textbooks that seem to revolve around history and literature. He starts shelving them quickly and effectively, noting the abundance of markers sticking out of the pagers. "I will not hit you, Miss Potter."

"Can you call me Lilac? It's a silly name but I hate when you call me that."

"Your father wished to call you Harriet. His middle name was Harris."

"I suppose Lilac would be better than that," she took out a couple articles of clothing and stowed them neatly in the dresser. "I don't miss him."

"Miss who?"

"Sirius." There's a long silence before she speaks again. "I hated him. He hit me and did things. I'm glad he's gone."

He turned to her, grasping Romeo and Juliet tightly in his hand. "I wish I'd been the one to end his wretched life."

"You're not a bad man." She informed him. "Even if you had, you wouldn't be."

He looks at the book in his grip and thinks of the end that ends in death. He doesn't want either of them to die.

He looks at her green eyes and doesn't see anyone but her.

They kiss the way all broken people do-

Desperately.

.

 _hallowed death_

.

She meets death barefoot with her hands perfectly controlled. Lilac Potter no longer looks like a weapon with her narrow frame but rather exposed. Battle has ripped apart her clothing, leaving her shoulders bare-angry scars crawling over her flesh. A mark on her cheek still stands out from the evening Snape took her from Black's basement.

"You're smaller than I remember," Voldemort smiles at her.

She smiles back. A little bit of innocence, a little bit a strength. To many people have died. Meaningless sacrifices that paved the road to this final moment.

Lilac Potter snaps her wand. Voldemort laughs shrilly, striding forward and slapping her hard across the face. His cold hand burns her skin but she grins through the pain, grasping the dagger tightly and plunging it into his chest.

"My shadow is bigger than you'd think," she informed him delicately, twisting the knife.

.

Paris is lovely and Russia is brilliant. They settle in house everywhere, making homes in lonely places.

No one looks for the hero and no one looks for the spy.

.


End file.
